


The Fires will Set

by Pyrosane



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 04:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4249671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyrosane/pseuds/Pyrosane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But there are some things that only Rick knows, and there are some gaps that only Daryl believes must be kept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fires will Set

Behind Daryl, the sun sets. Its jaw unhinges as it descends beyond Alexandria’s horizon, obscuring daylight with a sky that straightens itself into the color of berries, softened and pounded into the bottom of a bowl. This, the sunset, Daryl always watches. The day ends when the sky no longer resembles an endless expansion of Rick’s eyes.

It’s funny how much change time can bring. Half a decade since he tried to throw a punch into Rick’s left eye, Daryl has stopped trying to feign invincibility. In Alexandria, without the tug of Merle’s lingering absence, Daryl has nothing to give from guilt. He is but a screwed up boy, but a boy, but a boy -

Although, things don’t seem so bad in comparison to his old man’s couch. The world had gone to shit since his house burned down and his ma died, but Merle was absent then, too. So where had Merle even been his whole life? Where did Merle find his presence within Daryl?

Not that any of it mattered. Merle was dead.

And this is funny, so Daryl laughs. Glenn wakes. They’re on the night-shift in the watch tower. Daryl had offered to take the first half, so Glenn had curled up next to him, radiating heat, burning the whole cramped space to a fire, or something that sure as hell felt like one. “You’re ten Georgia summers in a person, kid.”

At Daryl’s words, Glenn rubs at his eyes and sits up.

“What?” He asks.

“Nothin’.” They sit in silence for several minutes. Glenn settles himself back on the pile of blankets beneath them. When did they become so spoiled?

“Do you think,” Glenn begins. “If every walker was tied up to each other, then they could reach the moon and back?”

Daryl scoffs. Glenn. Fucking Glenn. “Not sure there’d be a moon to come back from once they’ve reached it, ‘cause they’d eat the whole damn thing.” Glenn laughs, and Daryl supposes this moment is what home must feel like.

Later that night, when it’s Glenn’s turn to keep guard, Daryl falls asleep to the sound of the kid counting every walker he shoots down. It’s a messed up world.

*

So Alexandria has returned Glenn to a video-game enthusiast, and has planted flowers in Michonne. She laughs openly and generously, so Carol feels comfortable with baking casseroles now that too much tension has lifted and they’ve all become damn domesticated. It’s what Daryl notices and feels bad for wanting, because he wants to know the home-life, but doesn’t know what to want - his ma died and Merle left and his pa carved scars into his back, like hurt was love and cigarette burns were just as good as any hug.

Daryl is vulnerable and he likes to peek at strange yellow lights coming from houses across Rick’s own, where he sleeps with the rest of the family. The bathrooms in these houses are bigger than the share of space he sometimes got to himself in the wooden shack he had for a home as a child. These days, it’s much become staring at friendly lights than meet Rick’s inquisitive eyes. Ever since they reached Alexandria, Daryl has stopped talking to Rick unless necessary.  

Daryl cannot find a home in Rick. He cannot. He cannot.

But Rick doesn’t make it easy. Rick has never made anything easy for Daryl. Even before they met, Rick had chained Merle to a fucking rooftop, had cast a hard look at Daryl, had made Daryl back down through his tears, had done something to Daryl.

Rick damn well terrifies Daryl.

Between this day and the next, the seconds are sparse, like gaps between fingernail and skin, or sucking in air through the narrow nothings of teeth, a waste of breath, running underwater. Rick doesn’t make anything easy for Daryl, so Daryl offers to keep company in the watch tower, night after night, because _I’m a good shot_ , not _I’m in love with Rick Grimes_. It’s a messed up world.

*

Simply put, however, Rick is the only one that knows Daryl’s voice is not so deep. Daryl had never been as callous as Merle had been, but he wanted to be, a long time ago. He wanted to whistle like Merle and drink like Merle, joke like Merle, have a voice like Merle’s was, bear-skin thick, rough as bark. So when the world stopped spinning the way it used to, Daryl played along and changed himself along the lines. He dropped his voice and waved his words around like he grew up tough, not caring about shit, daggers in his heart from birth. Merle never stopped him. Merle had told him that he was finally growing into the man Merle knew he could be, and Daryl had been proud.

But what about Rick Grimes?

Rick Grimes had strutted in like he had been expecting Daryl. Rick Grimes had looked at Daryl, and Daryl had fallen apart. What the hell?

And Daryl suspects Rick knows that Daryl still keeps secrets. Nothing threatening, just the prideful shit, the one like a dropped voice and the nail-biting and the pining.

The pining. Daryl has eliminated himself from Rick’s line of sight, anyway. Daryl doesn’t wear button-up shirts unless it’s oversized plaid, frayed at the hems, okay to get blood on, easy to get bled on. He doesn’t twirl spaghetti around the fork and he spends all of his time fixing a bike that he finished fixing months ago. Where is Alexandria? It is cut off from the forest. It is the one place in dystopia where Daryl’s world no longer converges on Rick’s, and they no longer have to force themselves to interact, to pretend that they like each other. There’s no way Rick ever truly liked Daryl. It’s a messed up world.

*

But Rick still obscures Daryl’s boundaries and enters Daryl’s space as if it is his own. Rick still asks to take Daryl to the woods at the foot of Alexandria’s borders. Even Rick needs to get away sometimes.

Daryl doesn’t say much as the gate is opened and he trails next to Rick, but still behind. There are inches to be kept, ones that Daryl doesn’t dare cross, because Rick’s space is sacred. Rick’s space is what Daryl means to protect for the rest of his life. Rick’s space is what Daryl means to close, someday, when he can muster up the courage to do so in his dreams. The distance between them is everything that Daryl wishes he could have. Not that the end of the world got to his head; after all, Rick and Daryl would never have met, would never have even been aware of the other’s existence, if it hadn’t been for the world going to shit. And the world going to shit was never much of a way to meet in the first place.

Therefore, Daryl brings his thumb up to his lips and bites down, hard. He sinks his teeth into his skin and wills it to break. He wants to bleed. He needs to bleed. Bleeding has become a guilty pleasure ever since Daryl noticed that Rick notices, always, and stops to examine Daryl’s wounds. It’s then that the space between Rick and Daryl is closed by Rick’s own volition, and when Rick wants it, nothing is wrong. It’s Daryl who can’t make the first move, because he doesn’t deserve to.

Finally, the skin breaks. Daryl lets out a small sigh of relief, loudly enough for Rick to turn around. They’ve reached the woods but Rick ignores the trees, focusing instead on Daryl’s thumb. Rick is quick to concern and quick to anger, frowning and taking Daryl’s thumb in his own hands.

“Let me see that,” Rick says. Daryl complies. “I thought I told you to stop bitin’ at your thumb.”

“It ain’t no big deal. Just a damn thumb. I’ve -we’ve- been through worse.” Rick looks disappointed, like he wants to argue, but drops Daryl’s thumb. Daryl brings it back up to his lips and Rick shakes his head.

“I asked you to come out here,” Rick says, and Daryl fights the urge to bite down again. When had he even started biting at his thumb? Or had he always done this, sucking at his thumb? Daryl knows that he probably came out of his poor ma’s womb with his thumb in his mouth, and he never learned to leave it out. Daryl gives in to the urge to bite down. Rick continues. “I asked you to come out here because…” Rick falters. He drops his eyes and looks around, as if to make sure nobody is around. As if to make sure that Daryl is really listening and because of this, he must push on. “Daryl, I need to know what this,” he points a finger at himself, at Daryl, and then back to himself. “What this is between us.”

Daryl bites down harder. Rick looks expectant. Daryl grimaces. He tries at an answer.

“Whatever it is that you want, Rick.”

“But what about you, Daryl?” Rick presses. Rick steps closer to Daryl. Daryl drops his gaze.

“I’d want whatever you’d want. Y’know I’d do anything for you.”

Rick swallows. “Well,” he starts. Daryl braces himself for the worst. He sinks his teeth deeper into his thumb and can taste the blood, penny-flavored, copper wire rushing onto his tongue in caskets of liquid. But Rick forces it out. Rick kisses him on the lips.

“How ‘bout that?” Rick asks. Daryl is sure there was blood on his lips from his thumb and he is sure that the sun is setting behind them again. Daryl thinks of anything but the lack of a gap between himself and Rick Grimes, whose hand rests tentatively on Daryl’s neck, the right side, because Rick had leaned in to the right when he had kissed Daryl and because of that, Rick had held on to the right side of Daryl’s neck-

“That was everything I’ve ever wanted, officer Grimes.”

Rick lets out a shaky laugh and so does Daryl. The sky dims to orchid fields above them. Perhaps it’s not such a messed up world, depending on how close Rick is standing to Daryl.

**Author's Note:**

> I've come to fully realize and appreciate that I will never stop shipping Rickyl. This was a dangerous road that I chose to go down, so the fault is all mine. Remember when I was but a small, petulant child who began watching TWD with my mom?? Even then, I knew that Rick and Daryl were meant to be. Lalala ~


End file.
